Six metre, 320-tonne bending machine

G&L Bolnar Engineering, one of South Australia's largest general engineering firms, has acquired a second large CNC programmable brake press to facilitate the demands of the mining, transport, structural and general engineering sectors.

The company invested in a new Ursviken six metre, 320-tonne bending machine to complement its existing 640-tonne unit during ongoing peak market demand.

Among recent large-scale projects, Bolnar has supplied folded plates and pipes to the major renewal at Spencer Street Station (renamed Southern Cross Station) in Melbourne.

The jobbing company specialises in general, mechanical, structural and plate fabrication and has large workshops linked to a well equipped forming services division.

Managing director Harry Bolnar says the technical and performance aspects of this new Ursviken 320-tonne unit hold specific advantages to the type of fabrication the workshop performs.

"The Ursviken 6m 340-tonne has CNC controlled six-axis back gauges and a variable bottom die which is a very big advantage as it cuts down on die change over times during production," Mr Bolnar said.

"This is particularly advantageous when doing one-off or two-off work, which until now had normally been very costly to run as it involved constant die changeovers.

"But with die changeovers all but ruled out now, we can do the lighter projects very readily without losing margins and without waiting to slot it into a more favourable job schedule - therefore it is better service to our customers,” he said.

"Since investing in this new machine, we have built up our capacity by at least 30 to 40%.

"We also operate very big Roundo section rollers R11S, R6, R4 so we do almost everything demanded by these industries. We rolled all the pipes for the Spencer Street Station rebuild."

Before purchasing the Ursviken 320-tonne unit, Bolnar Engineering investigated the global market to try to find another machine - of any brand - to meet and match the performance characteristics of is existing 640-tonne machine.

“After extensive testing and analysis, it was the Ursviken that performed up to the expectation of the company,” Mr Bolnar said.

"Other brands were put through stringent tests, but the quality didn't meet that of the Ursviken.

"Our existing machine is just over eight years old, so we are confident of gaining an equally long service life from our new technology as we look to expand out markets further."

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